


The big affair I cannot forget

by Petra



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M, Recursive Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 19:15:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The detective's stories were what made Sam look at him more than once, and swear under his breath, because they were really what cemented the crush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The big affair I cannot forget

**Author's Note:**

> A spot of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff originally written for the Life on Mars Big Bang that would've moldered on my hard drive were it not for [](http://blueteak.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**blueteak**](http://blueteak.dreamwidth.org/), [](http://loz.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**loz**](http://loz.dreamwidth.org/), and [](http://talkingtothesky.livejournal.com/profile)[**talkingtothesky**](http://talkingtothesky.livejournal.com/).

Sam thought maybe that the copper who came to talk to everyone at the career assembly was part of the summer program when he first showed up, but the woman who ran it was a battle-axe, broad in the beam and sharp-voiced with a bun you could bounce conkers off. This man--he was about as old, maybe, and about as broad, and he had one of those voices that meant he could talk to the whole assembly without a microphone if there was a power cut--but that's where the resemblance stopped.

So Sam was listening with all his might--he'd say he was all ears except that was what the lads had been calling him this last year and more, since they found out he was swotting up on maths, which was better than being called Dumbo but not by much. He knew, all the way to his toes, that this was the kind of copper he wanted to be. Maybe he wanted to learn to talk a little better, somewhere along the way, because there were fits and starts in the speech--when he was telling stories like he probably did with his mates after work, that flowed like anything, like the best shows--but when he was talking about the official things in between the stories, they fell apart some.

The stories were what made Sam look at him more than once, and swear under his breath, because they were really what cemented the crush. It was a stupid kind of crush, barely anything to do with the way the man looked and everything to do with who he was, how he sounded, what he'd done.

Not the kind of thing Sam would ever admit to, to anyone at all. He had mates, a few good ones, but he'd not go telling any of them he'd like to try kissing blokes as well as girls, not in a million years. They'd think he had AIDS and no one would talk to him or probably even look at him.

Except--except he went after the copper, as quiet as he could, after that presentation, keeping track of him and following him like he'd done a few times. Practicing for when he has to follow criminals, he called it. His mum called it skulking and she'd have his head if she knew he was doing it, and after a copper and all, someone who has a gun--he showed it off, so Sam knew--and who might think Sam was up to no good if he caught Sam following him.

He didn't know what he'd say if anybody asked what he was doing, as telling the truth would make him sound like a right idiot and lying would be worse. Especially if it was lying to the police, because probably if they caught you doing that they wouldn't let you join after. They shouldn't let you join after, anyway, even if they would really. So he was careful to stay out of sight, and he was all ready to make note of the copper's number plate but he went off on foot across the school yard instead.

Sam decided that it was better to do a bit of pre-job training than go back in for double history and followed him.

He made it some blocks, far enough behind that he didn't think anyone would notice him, and with the look on his face he'd practiced for this sort of thing, like he was going somewhere important and no one should stop him to ask him why he was out of school. The first time the copper rounded a corner, Sam followed him without any trouble, and the second.

The third, he thought it was going to be all right, but as soon as he went into the street someone grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over toward the wall of the shop there, hard. "What the hell are you playing at?" and Sam knew that voice--had been listening so hard to it that he thought he'd recognize it anywhere, now.

He could feel himself going red. "Nothing, DCI Hunt," he said, and he was proud of himself for remembering the detective's name while his voice was near breaking--it hadn't done that in years now--and he was trying to make himself stop shaking.

And he was taking notes the whole time the copper looked at him. He had to learn to glare like that, like he could see all the bad things anybody had ever done and he was going to make them pay for it all. "How old are you?" he asked.

Sam swallowed hard and thought of the excuse he'd made up while he was going down the high street. "Seventeen. Sir. But I've got a dentist appointment--I'm not skiving off class--"

Hunt's scowl was seriously impressive, and Sam wanted to practice it right then, but it wouldn't have made things easier if he'd tried it. "How d'you know who I am, then? Did I bang up your old man?"

Everyone either knew better than to mention Sam's dad, or they didn't know it was a thing he'd react to at all. He'd taught himself not to care about it when he was just a kid, so no one could tease him for it, after he'd broken Tommy Simpson's nose for calling him a bastard. He managed to keep his voice level when he said, "I don't think so, no."

"Seventeen." Hunt let his arm go. "You didn't get yourself in trouble when you were nine, did you?"

Sam was sure he didn't mean the time he'd half-killed his mum with fright by riding his bicycle along the side of the canal with no hands and falling in, or the time he'd played with firecrackers with Larry Stevens and they'd almost blown their fingers off but not quite. Nothing like that was a problem for the police. "No."

"You look bloody familiar." Hunt reached towards Sam, pushed his chin up with one finger, and gave him another searching look. "No brothers in gaol?"

Sam shook his head, pulling away uncomfortably. Hunt's expression was one of those ones that probably felt strong from the inside, but it was awful being on the outside of it. "I haven't any brothers."

"What's your name?" Hunt looked like he ought to be able to read it off Sam's face, but there was no way that'd work, and he didn't honestly know how much trouble he'd be in for lying.

"Sam," he said, and thought of giving a false name, but if he ever saw DCI Hunt again round the station, either over the summer or when Sam got a proper job there, it'd be better if they started out with the truth. "Sam Tyler."

That was the wrong thing to say. Hunt backed away from him like he'd seen a ghost for a second, till he ran smack into the brickwork behind himself and stopped. "Christ," he said, like Sam's name meant anything to him.

Sam frowned, trying one of Hunt's expressions, and asking the questions this time, though Hunt was twice his size and there was no way to play bad cop with him. "Did you bang up my dad, then?" he asked. "In 1973, it was, and we haven't seen him since, but you're supposed to tell people if you put someone in gaol."

He was half certain that he'd got the menacing expression wrong, even though DCI Hunt looked more scared than any copper ought to. "No," he said, and it wobbled. And he said it again, more firmly, "No. I didn't send down Tylers in '73, though not for lack of provocation. And I've never arrested anyone without notifying their families, so don't you give me that ruddy look."

That meant it was working, and that Sam had to stop. He looked at his shoes instead, where there were a few spots of mud from crossing the school yard. "Sorry," he said.

"Haven't seen him since," Hunt said, more quietly, and put his hand on Sam's shoulder, not like he was trying to get him to come along to the station, but--something else. Something Sam couldn't quite place. "Where's your dentist, lad?"

Sam shook his head. "That was an excuse. A--a lie. I was--I saw you at school, and I wanted--" he couldn't say what all he'd wanted, except more than he'd got in assembly. More stories, more time to learn, more things to learn. "I wanted to ask you about my dad."

Hunt's fingers tightened on his shoulder till it almost hurt. "I saw that rot they serve at the school. Come on."

That was the last thing he was expecting to hear. "Come on where?"

"There used to be a chippie three blocks down from here. Is it still there?"

The thought made Sam's stomach grumble, because the food at school was poor, and there wasn't enough. There hadn't been enough in some time, not from any fault of his mum's, but because he was always hungry these days. He hadn't any money to buy extras, but he wasn't going to say that. "I'd better be getting back to class, actually. There's an exam."

He tried to duck away from where Hunt was still holding him, but he didn't manage it. Hunt laughed at him. "You're coming along with me, and no more bollocks about getting back to class. What did you follow me for if you had that exam to do?"

Sam bit his tongue to keep himself from cursing. He'd already got his story muddled up, even beyond the lies he'd planned for, and if he kept on like this Hunt would turn him out of the summer program for being a fool as well as a liar. "I did want to ask about my dad. And--and everything else you've done." It was the wrong time to say it, but he couldn't think of a better reason than the truth. "I want to be a police officer. Sir."

"That settles it." Hunt pulled him toward the street, got him walking along before Sam could think of a better way to protest. "They wouldn't take you as you are, Tyler. You couldn't bring in my granny. You're too skinny--need fattening up first."

Sam reckoned that if he went along with this, he'd get an extra meal out of it, and maybe some of the stories he was wanting. It was worth putting up with a round of taunting that would've been more likely coming from the other boys in his year, but then at least Hunt hadn't started in on how short he was, besides. He gave Hunt a sidelong look and teased him right back, instead. "Ever heard of there being too much of a good thing?"

Hunt scowled at him again, but didn't cuff him. He made a sound that was more or less a laugh. "That's never true, lad. You find something you like, you have as much of it as you can take, because it'll never last."

Maybe the police department should have sent a copper along who had more cheerful advice for people, but it made sense to Sam. He tried falling into step with Hunt, mocking his easy stride. "Even chips? Are you sure?"

"Have them while you can," Hunt said, and punched him in the arm as if they were mates. "When you get to be my age, you won't like them so well. Or they won't like you."

"I haven't got any money," Sam admitted, though he hadn't meant to. He was sure it was better to say it early than late, and he didn't know what Hunt was going to do about it--tell him off, laugh at him again, or send him on back to school with orders to stay there this time.

"I can spare enough to see you get a meal," Hunt said, and didn't laugh or thump him that time. "If you're going to be joining the force, I'd rather have you fit for duty than disappearing when you turn sideways."

Sam shook his head. He wasn't that badly off, and he never meant to pretend he was. "It's good for following people."

"I spotted you coming across the yard, Sammy-boy. You're small, but you're not bloody invisible."

"But you didn't say anything," Sam protested.

Hunt sighed, a long-suffering sigh like Sam's mum when he'd asked to go to a club and she'd told him no too many times in a row. "Not in front of the school when you would've ducked back in, and not down the road across from it. Too many people there, ladies doing the marketing. They would've all come round and had a word with you about playing the truant, and you'd be back taking that test."

"I wouldn't have left if there'd been a test." He didn't know that that was as true as it should've been, but he could say it as though it was. "Just a lecture today, really, and I can get the notes from a mate."

Hunt nodded once as though he'd worked all of that out. Maybe he had, as he was a detective, and he had to be better at figuring things out than Sam was at making them up. "You're not to tell anyone about this," he said, looking forbidding all over again. "I don't go round letting kids off lightly when they're out of school. And I don't buy them ruddy chips."

Sam frowned at him. "You do know how ridiculous that is, don't you? We're going in the exact opposite direction of where I ought to be, and, all right, maybe you've been a bit rough with me, but it's hardly the same as I'd get from the masters if they caught me coming back in at this hour." He didn't mention the chips, as he hadn't had them yet and he wasn't sure that part was as much a lie as the rest.

"Should I drag you back in there by your ear?" Hunt asked, but it didn't sound like any kind of real threat so far as Sam could tell. "Tell them to give you a good thrashing so you don't do it again?"

"No. I'd rather hear more of your stories."

Hunt smiled briefly. "The gory ones."

Sam shook his head. "No, the ones about working things out properly. Anybody can get a gun and shoot people, anybody can thump people till they're scared. Those are the easy bits. But I want to hear about all the detective stuff you do. You must have good stories like that, too. Stories about how you saved people."

"How bloody old are you?" Hunt asked again, and waved his hand irritably at Sam when he opened his mouth to answer. "What kind of kid wants stories of sorting through dusty files and staring at pictures till you go blind, looking for clues? I've been in chases they wouldn't put on the television, Tyler. I've seen things that'd turn your hair white."

"No, you haven't," Sam said. "Or you'd look as old as you say you are."

"Not my hair, yours." Hunt stopped walking outside the chippie. "Hang about out here, or you'll have the law down on your head. You want them swimming in extra vinegar, don't you? Salt enough to make your eyes twitch?"

The talk of files and boredom had made Sam wonder if Hunt could solve any cases at all really, but that was an impressive guess. "Yes, please."

He tried to look innocent while he was waiting by doing some window-shopping at the next shop over, but there was only so long he could look at denim jackets and pretend he might want to buy one. Half the display was for ladies anyway, with big flowers printed on the fabric. "That one on the left would suit you," Hunt said, close enough to Sam to startle him. He wouldn't have thought a man that big could move that quietly. "Roses and pansies and all."

Sam stared at him for a moment, wondering what he'd guessed at that. "That's not really my color."

"No," Hunt agreed, and handed him a dripping newspaper cone. "Eat your chips before they're soggy."

They were already half soggy with vinegar, but that was how Sam would've had them if he'd done it himself. "How did you work out what I wanted on them?" he asked, while the first one was making his mouth pucker and his eyelids itch with the salt.

"Same as that pretty jacket in there. Suits you."

Sam made a face even worse than the vinegar was giving him. "There's no story behind that? You didn't work it out?"

"Lucky guess. No lollygagging, Sammy, I've got places to go."

Sam tried to forget about the jacket and concentrate on the chips as they burned his fingers. "Places like where?"

"They don't pay me to hang about the city all day with kids your size. I've got to get back to the station. We've a new detective coming in today and all."

"Oh." Sam had another chip so he had an excuse to grimace. He'd been looking forward to at least one story. "Could I see? I've never been inside before."

"It's not what it used to be," Hunt said, and sounded as though he missed whatever had changed. "Barely worth the tour."

"I'd like to see it anyway," Sam said, and Hunt shook his head.

"What should I tell them? I've banged you up for stealing chips? We've better things to do with our time than have kids wandering around the station."

"I wouldn't wander." Sam lifted his chin and tried to look older and more responsible, which wasn't easy with vinegar dripping through his fingers. "I didn't wander in the first place, did I? I followed you, and I'd do it again, as close as you'd let me."

"I reckon you would," Hunt said, sounding bitter for no reason Sam could understand. "What's your cover story? Still your dentist appointment?"

Sam rolled his eyes and wished he'd never lied to begin with. "You can tell them the truth--that I'm signed up for that summer program, helping out, and that you've decided to give me a sneak preview. You can even check the records if you don't believe me, because I sent in the papers a month ago."

"Summer program? You'd spend your summer holed up in that smoke-filled office, fetching tea for a bunch of coppers as won't thank you and counting their paperclips?"

It sounded awful, put that way, but Sam didn't believe that was all there was to it. Hunt kept trying to frighten him off without saying anything that mattered. "If that's all you'll let me do, at least I know I'll be freeing up officers who know what they're doing to take care of things."

Hunt snorted. "And no speeches about how you're better than that?"

He was, but it wouldn't help to say it, and he didn't think he was any sort of child prodigy when it came to things he'd had no training in. "No, sir," he said.

"All my men--" Hunt cleared his throat. "All my officers call me 'Guv,' Sammy."

"Even my mum only calls me Sammy when I'm too ill to get out of bed--Guv." It felt like he was daring a lot to say it, though it made Hunt smile at him. And that made his stomach warm in a way the chips didn't, in a way he was trying like hell to ignore. It was bad enough to fancy boys who'd never notice him, or girls who thought they were too pretty for him, but fancying someone who'd worked out how he liked his chips after knowing him for all of five minutes was dangerous.

"You'll get used to it."

Sam blinked, not sure for a moment what he was meant to get used to, then eyed Hunt again. "If I'm going to get used to it, that means you're not tossing me out of the program, yeah?"

Hunt nodded once. "We could do with a few more hands to fetch and carry round CID." He snitched one of Sam's chips, biting into it and making a face as though he was surprised at how it tasted. "Though if your taste in tea's anything like your taste in chips, you're never making mine."

"How do you like your tea, Guv?"

*

"Five sugars, double milk," Sam said, setting down the cup and saucer on the corner of DCI Hunt's desk and trying not to grin as hard as he wanted to. He hadn't been in the police station from the brief visit in April to the start of the program in July, and he hadn't seen Hunt since the day they met, but he was determined to remember everything he could and prove that he really could do better than sharpening pencils. He'd met the rest of the kids in the program, and while there were a few who were smart enough, most of them seemed like they were there because someone had made them come. It wouldn't be too hard to look better than them.

Hunt looked up from his file, seeming startled. "Back already, Sammy?"

Sam had a letter setting the dates of the program, and there'd been a note in it in handwriting he could barely puzzle out that said, "Leave your vinegar home - G." No one else would've bothered to put that in, and he'd read it a terrible number of times, wondering what it'd meant. "All summer long, Guv."

"Aren't we lucky." Hunt thumped the computer on his desk as if it had insulted his mother. "How's your typing?"

"Not bad." Sam wasn't as fast as he wanted to be, but he didn't have to hunt and peck except for numbers. "Can I help?"

"This box of bolts ate my report the last two times I typed it, and I'm buggered if I'm going to type it all up again." Hunt handed him a file. "You get that all squared away for me."

The handwriting was definitely the same as the extra note in Sam's letter, equally difficult to make out, and he could tell it would be a long day getting the computer to behave if he had half as much trouble as Hunt had. "Where should I go to work on it?" he asked.

Hunt stood up, pushing in the drawers of his desk, and patted the back of his chair. "Leave it on the desk when you're done."

A woman stuck her head in the door, looking worried. She was short, blonde, and looked about forty, with severe cheekbones and her hair unfashionably short. "I've had a call about Carridges, Guv," she said. "Looks like there's another body."

"Bloody hell, Lucy, don't you ever have good news?" Hunt didn't even glance at Sam as he strode out of the office.

Sam watched them go, wondering whether Hunt was so easy in joking about flower-printed denim because one of his detectives was a lesbian. If Detective Lucy whoever liked women, and she'd somehow let Hunt know, and they were still working together, what did that mean? Then he shook himself and looked back at the file. He had more important things to deal with, like whether the name of the victim in the case he was typing up was Harold or Carol.

He was sure, based on careful analysis and asking DS Morris, that the name of the deceased was Carol Klein, and that he had all the particulars right by the time Hunt came back, arguing loudly with Lucy. "If you hadn't punched him, we would have three times as much information," she said, loudly enough for it to carry through the walls of the office.

"If I hadn't punched him, he would've grabbed for your tits again, and you'd still be crying into your tea." Hunt pushed open the door of his office and pointed at Sam. "You, out."

"I don't need you to protect me," Lucy said, as Sam ducked out the door. "I need you to treat me as a bloody equal in this kind of investigation."

"I would've punched him if he went for Charles's willy," Hunt said, sounding annoyed.

Sam bit his lip and wished he hadn't heard that bit, or that it didn't sound as bad as it did. It probably didn't have anything to do with sex as much as with assaulting a police officer, which was a bad idea no matter how people went about it.

"Goodness, there you are, Mr Tyler," said Sergeant Frances, the woman running the program. "Where have you been hiding all this time?"

"I was typing up a report for the--for DCI Hunt," Sam said.

She frowned. "And where is this report?"

"On his desk, where he asked me to leave it."

"You've not had your lunch. Get down to the canteen this minute. I'll not have your mother ringing us up to complain we're starving you to death."

Sam had forgotten to be hungry until she said it. He'd had more on his mind than food. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."

She shook her head, pursing her lips. "And you keep your distance from CID, young sir. That Hunt'll be the death of all of them, the way he pushes them."

Sam couldn't imagine how that would be a bad thing, with all of the cases in the city to solve. "I'll try, ma'am," he lied, and went off to find his lunch before someone found him something else to do.

That evening, just before it was time to catch the bus home, Hunt found Sam doing some much-needed sorting on Sergeant Frances's orders. "You made it through your first day," he said, as if he was surprised.

"I wasn't going to run off in the middle of it," Sam said, and set the files down on a high shelf so he could find them in the morning. "Why would I?"

"You've not done anything worth doing." Hunt gave him a pitying look. "Cooped up in here with a bunch of PCs and our Sergeant Frances after you to get things tidy."

"They do need tidying." Sam looked around the room, where several filing cabinets were overflowing and it seemed like it'd be impossible to find anything. "Otherwise all the clues go missing, don't they, Guv?"

Hunt shrugged. "There're always going to be new ones."

Sam nodded and decided it was best not to argue with him about how to do his job, as Sam didn't really know enough to make a good point. Not yet, anyway. Not till they sent for some piece of information they wouldn't be able to find if he hadn't set the place to rights, and he could pull it out and save somebody, or bang somebody up who deserved it. "I'd better get to the bus stop. It's a long walk home."

He couldn't guess why that made Hunt look surprised. Sam knew his clothes were behind the times, nothing special, nothing that made him look like he had the money to get round any other way. "So you're off? No hanging round with your new intern mates and celebrating that none of you got thrown out?"

The thought made Sam laugh. "I don't know what any of them did after ten this morning, when I started typing up that report of yours. And I don't think any of them want to hear how much fun it was trying to work out how you spell 'exsanguinated.'"

Hunt narrowed his eyes. "I don't. What did you need to know for?"

Sam frowned right back at him. "You should've said it, and I fixed it, so the final report's more accurate than it would be otherwise. You know there isn't one decent dictionary in the whole station? I asked everyone I could find. There's a French dictionary, God knows why, but no good English."

"Christ." Hunt looked at his watch and opened the door of the dusty room, gesturing Sam out of it before him. "First off, when you're typing up a report, you type what you're given, not what you want to see there, or you end up with folk like DC Wells trying to testify about what they wrote and proving he's never heard of ex-bloody-sanguination in his life, but there it is in his report, so the court knows he didn't say what he says he said."

"It was in the forensics report," Sam said defensively. "And you know what it means. You have to."

"Next time, leave it as 'bled out,' Sammy."

"Yes, Guv." Sam glanced at him, trying to work it out. "But if you know the right word, why don't you use it?"

"Juries don't like it when coppers talk over their heads. They know what bleeding out means. No use throwing all that bollocks at them to show you've read a few things."

"That doesn't make sense. It should reassure them that you know what you're talking about."

"I do, thank you, lad. It makes them feel better when they know what you're talking about, too."

"Should I retype it tomorrow?" Sam asked, frustrated and wishing he'd never tried to be helpful.

"Not this time." Hunt patted his shoulder, which made him feel a little better and a lot worse at the same time. It was easier by half wishing that Paul Wright would kiss him when Paul Wright didn't know he existed on the planet. Hunt kept acknowledging he existed and touching him in ways that had nothing to do with what Sam wanted of him. Not that he could've put words to half of it, even if it'd been safe to say them out loud.

Sam tried not to sigh too obviously. "I'll be more careful next time."

"I know you will." Hunt gave him a long look that made Sam wish he had a better way to hide everything he was feeling. He'd never been good at lying, and he didn't want to be turned away from the program because Hunt thought there was something wrong with him.

"I have to catch the bus," he said again, hoping that worked as an explanation for how nervous he was feeling.

Hunt shook his head, and Sam felt cold suddenly, sure that he'd done the wrong thing already. "You've got something to celebrate. Can't be off home just yet."

"If I spend my bus fare celebrating--anything--I'll be two hours walking home."

"I'll see you get there safe," Hunt said.

Sam stared at him. He had to have better things to do than look after Sam, who wasn't in trouble, hadn't broken any laws, and would only need help getting home if he hung round another five minutes to talk. "It's all right, really, Guv. I'll make it there on my own."

"Friday, then," Hunt said, fixing Sam with a look that said he'd wriggle out of that one at his own peril, possibly up to and including something like a real police inquiry. "When you've shown you can bear up under all this for a week."

Sam hadn't made plans beyond a vague "We could go somewhere" with Larry, who was always calling things off at the last second when he'd found another girl to go out with him. "All right, Friday."

"If you make it that far," Hunt said, but Sam didn't believe he was half as worried about as he pretended to be.

"We'll see, Guv," he said, and ran for the bus stop.

*

Sam hadn't the first idea what the end of a week would look like, and the week itself proved to be just as tedious as Hunt had warned him about from the start. Apart from having DS Morris lean on him to type up a report like he'd done for the Guv, he mostly ended up in a room with one grubby window, sorting files out into better piles than they'd been in before. Every day he came home with his nice shirts dirt-streaked and needing a wash, till his mum said, "You should've found a place cleaning the drains, love. It'd be easier on your clothes."

Sam was scrubbing at that day's smudges in the kitchen sink while his mum made Thursday's supper and talked with his aunt Heather. "I think it'd smell worse."

Heather laughed. "We could fix you right up with a bit of cologne."

"No, thank you." Sam added a bit more soap and scrubbed at a blue line on his collar, wondering where it had come from.

"None of the girls in that program have caught your eye?" his mum asked.

Sam scowled at the smudge on his shirt and felt his ears heat up. "Some of them are nice, but we don't have time to talk except over lunch."

"Too busy saving lives, are you? Hand me another onion, love." Heather chopped the top off with one solid thwack of knife on cutting board. "I'm sure they're all sweet on you, Sam. All the lasses with their checkered ties."

At least that was the sort of thing they could expect him to go red over, instead of the things that were true but felt like lies about how much he didn't fancy anybody. "I don't think half of them would say hello to me on the street, really." He held up his shirt to check it for extra marks.

"Nor would I, with a spot like that on your pocket," his mum said. "Go and get the bleach, or what will they think of us?"

"Yes, mum." He felt safer out of the kitchen, especially when they changed the subject.

When Sam came back with the bleach, Aunt Heather was saying, "And with Sarah off to university, I've got the room free this next year. It'd be only right if her empty space paid her board."

"She'll fuss like anything, having to share when she's on holiday," his mum said. The kitchen smelled of onions enough to make Sam's eyes water, but it was a good, familiar kind of discomfort.

"She'd fuss more if we told her she had to come home, and we're cutting corners as it is. And Julia's fourteen now, old enough to know not to bother her sister."

Sam added a bit of bleach to the water, measuring it carefully, and hoped they didn't ask his opinion. He could imagine the row his cousin Sarah would start over losing her room to some boarder, just because she'd studied hard enough to get a place at a university too far away to stay home. He envied her that freedom. Things would be much easier if he didn't have to explain everything to his mum every time he went anywhere.

On the other hand, he'd no siblings, and certainly none as particular about their things as Julia. Whether he left and came home or not, he wouldn't have the same trouble Sarah was about to face.

The bleach took care of the smudge that wouldn't go away, and when he held the shirt up again for their approval, his mum pressed her lips together for a moment, studying it, before she nodded. "You'll do."

Heather sighed. "I wish my Bill would look after his things half so carefully."

"He'll be here in ten minutes," Sam's mum said. "You could give him a talk on laundry, Sam."

Uncle Bill worked on engines, and nearly always had grease under his fingernails, if not on his clothes. He was the sort of man who always smelled like where he worked, and he was big enough to make two of Sam. "I have to give Larry a call," he said, making his excuse to get out of the kitchen before they could say anything worse. He hid in the living room instead.

Larry said, "Oh, you found a girl?" when Sam had promised his mum they'd only talk a minute, and he'd come to the phone.

Sam swallowed hard and reminded himself it was nothing like that. "No, there's this first week celebration thing in the police program I'm doing. I don't know when it lets out."

"Charlotte's doing that with you, right?"

Larry had dated Charlotte the year before and told Sam far more than he'd ever wanted to know about what she was like when they were kissing. Sam hadn't been able to look her in the eyes since, but that was a problem she had with a lot of blokes, with her chest and all. "Yeah."

"Maybe I'll tag along, then."

"I think it's just for the people in the program," Sam said, quick as he could come up with the lie. He didn't know whether there was anything official, really. Sergeant Frances hadn't mentioned anything where he could hear it, either in the morning assignments or in what she called the "lunchtime debriefing," but he'd missed a few of the lunches when he lost track of time.

"What fun is that?" Larry asked, then said, "Well, have a good time, then. Don't do anybody I wouldn't do."

Sam laughed, a bit forced. "I'll let you know if anything goes right. Supper's almost ready, so that's me off."

"See you," Larry said, and hung up.

Sam sat in the living room, trying not to hope for all the weird things he know weren't going to happen, till his mum called him a few minutes later.

*

Sam's shirt was dry except for the collar by morning, and that was good enough for going into the station. It wasn't anything he would've worn for a real celebration, but he'd half-convinced himself there wasn't going to be one, especially since no one else mentioned it in the morning assignments, and Sergeant Frances didn't bring it up at lunchtime. Whatever DCI Hunt had said, there were other priorities. CID wasn't in as much of a rush as it was sometimes when Sam peeked in, but DI Myers, whose name wasn't Lucy at all, came in to the room where he was organizing the paperwork and gave him a list of names to look for. That took him most of the afternoon, and some of the files hadn't been touched in a dog's age. He was grey as a ghost by the time he brought her the files.

"We've got ourselves a right little chimneysweep," DS Morris said, grinning all over his broad face.

"More like a powder monkey," DCI Hunt said, looking much less amused, which shouldn't have made Sam feel better, but did. "If these files have half what we're looking for, Lucy, they'll blow the case wide open."

"They will," she said, and took them from Sam. "Thank you, Sam."

Sam brushed at the dust in his hair and wished he didn't look such a fright. Whoever else was going to be celebrating the end of the week, they'd think he was a lost cause. "You're welcome, ma'am."

"Get on back to your files, Tyler," Hunt told him. "Shift's not over till five-thirty."

That wasn't the normal time, but no one else argued, and Sam wasn't going to be the only one standing up for his right to go home early. He'd heard two of the DCs talking about DCI Hunt two days before, how he'd come roaring home from London and was whipping CID into shape. Not a new shape, exactly, but the shape it'd had once, where everything went the way he said, and no one bloody argued.

Sam had told his mum about the celebration he didn't entirely believe in, so she wouldn't worry however late he was gone. He'd brought enough money to get himself home, and to pay for a meal if they didn't go anywhere too expensive. Most of the kids in the program were about as well off as Sam was, so he didn't think it'd be an issue if the people organizing it had thought about the problem.

He spent the extra time getting more of the files straight, wishing that whoever had dealt with them last had been more careful. He'd found several things that didn't belong in criminal dossiers, including several magazines of naked women and some files that were smudged with food. He set the magazines aside after he checked the files to make sure they weren't evidence of some strange sort, and wondered whether he could get anyone to pay him for them around school. Some of the styles were at least a decade out of date, but breasts were breasts, whatever decade they were from, and he didn't think everyone would be particular about them.

Sam was up to his elbows in the Cs and had just found another magazine when the door banged open and DCI Hunt said, "Tyler. Time to go," as if Sam had been holding him up.

"Yes, Guv." Sam stuffed the magazine back in the folder, hoping Hunt hadn't seen it, and shoved the drawer closed.

"You can bring that along if you like," Hunt said, giving him a smile that felt like a dare. "Those birds are better looking than any company you'll find at this party."

Sam pulled another folder over the stack of the other magazines. "No, thanks." But he didn't do it subtly enough, because Hunt tugged it off again a second later.

"Maybe you don't need a party after all," he said, picking one up. "Leastways, not a party with anyone else invited, is that it?"

Sam knew he was blushing fit to catch his shirt on fire. "I found them in the files, Guv. Didn't think you'd want them in with everything else, when they've naught to do with the cases. You wouldn't want DI Myers running across them."

"She'd be all right," Hunt said, and Sam was afraid he'd open the magazine right there and make some comment on one of the girls that Sam would have to answer, but he put it down again. "Don't you worry about Lucy. She's a big girl."

She maybe weighed as much as Sam, dripping wet, but that hadn't been what Hunt meant. "Anyway, I found them, and I wasn't reading them, I promise. I'd got up to the C's."

Hunt frowned at him with that look that made Sam wonder again how much of his feelings showed in his face. "All right, all right, Sammy. Not a lass in there as could turn your head from the noble pursuit of justice, is there?"

That was much closer to something like the truth than Sam wanted to go, though he'd seen enough girls who caught his eye to know it wasn't exactly so. "I didn't look, Guv. Not while I was working."

Hunt hissed through his teeth. "'Course you didn't. Come on, lad, it's beer-o'clock."

Sam cleared his throat, then did it again when he got a bit of dust in it. He didn't mind lying to the barman or showing false papers in the off-license, but he wasn't going to let himself in for charges of underage drinking while he was anywhere near police officers. "My birthday's not till November, sir."

Hunt hesitated for a moment. "I'll get you in some lemon squash and all, but you're getting out of this place for the night."

"Yes, Guv."

Sam was looking for signs of anything like a celebration the whole way there--ten blocks, and he knew from listening to the detectives that it wasn't where CID usually went, nor the uniformed officers either. None of the other kids were coming along, and he didn't see any officers he recognized, on the street or in the pub. That made his dusty clothes worse, because at least if he'd seen someone who knew what he'd been doing all day, they'd think he was working hard, not rolling in the street.

He was so busy looking for a familiar face in the pub and not finding one that he had to interrupt DCI Hunt ordering to explain that he didn't want any lemon squash--really--thank you--but he'd have a Diet Coke.

The woman behind the bar gave him a funny look, as though she'd expected him to ask for a pint of something he wasn't allowed to have, and said, "And you, sir?" to Hunt.

Sam waited till they'd found a table and he had the Coke in his hand, cooling his fingers down but not calming his nerves, to ask, "Was this supposed to be for everyone in the program? Because I think they're lost, if it is."

"What would I want with the rest of them?" Hunt asked, and had a sip of his whisky. "I wouldn't know their names if they were right in front of me, which they aren't. Not sorting out the smut from the files, not bringing tea to the whole division and never once giving Victor the diabetic DC Reese's seven sugars, not chasing me halfway across town when they should be in school."

"Sorry," Sam said, and wished he had something half as strong as the whisky. "Then--why me?"

"Jesus, Sammy, for all your going on about details, you're not bloody listening to them." Hunt tipped his glass toward him in something like a toast. "Your first week."

Sam shook his head and raised his glass in turn, clinking it against Hunt's. He couldn't think when he'd said anything about details, other than fixing a few words in Hunt's report. "That doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment."

Hunt looked over his shoulder for long enough that Sam was afraid it was all a put-on and everyone else from the program would come over to their little table in a second. "Getting through your first week in one piece is better than some do."

"If you say so."

"I do." Hunt smacked the table. "And you've been following me about town long enough, you should get one of them stories you've been after."

Sam blinked. "All right."

He could only follow the start of the story, one of Hunt's cases from London that had involved a gang, because as soon as Hunt said, "And the suspect's boyfriend was our informant," Sam was listening too hard to the spaces between the words to hear the actual story.

That, and every time Hunt described the people involved as "fairies," Sam wanted to hide under the table.

"Never thought about going undercover as a poof when you decided you wanted to be a copper, did you?" Hunt asked, partway through.

Sam was almost glad he didn't have any practice telling people the truth. He might've done it then, if only to startle him for a moment, here in this not-really-a-celebration that had nothing to do with the program as far as Sam could tell. "It never occurred to me," he admitted, perfectly truthfully. "Have you had to do it much?"

Hunt snorted. "What, me? No one would believe that for a second, Sammy-boy."

Sam drank more of his Coke to hide how much he wished that wasn't true. He could hardly go round letting people know what he was thinking if they thought the whole thing was a joke. "I didn't mean they would, Guv," he said after a few seconds, choosing his words carefully. "But it'd be a challenge, yeah?"

"Biggest one I can think of," Hunt said. "I'd be better off posing as a murderer than a queer."

It took Sam a moment to push his completely irrational disappointment aside and shake his head. "You wouldn't be able to do that, either. No one would believe it of you."

Hunt raised his eyebrows and told him two stories, one after the other, where people had thought exactly that. First time, his DI had got him out of it by making sure all the information was there in the proper order, like Sam did--and there was a second there where Sam wanted to stop him, to ask more, because his expression went funny, but he didn't like to interrupt, and Hunt was going on as if he didn't feel anything out of the ordinary.

The second story was more gut-chilling, because he'd known the end of the first one from the start--no one had sent DCI Hunt down for anything--but in the second, he'd actually shot someone, and had to go about proving he hadn't meant to.

Sam was shivering by the time he was done. "But everything worked out," he said, pressing for more information. "She was all right in the end, yeah?"

Hunt got that peculiar expression again and said, "Yeah, as much as she ever was. Are you expecting to go home for your supper?"

It would be difficult to eat as if everything was normal if Hunt was telling that sort of story, but that was something real coppers had to get used to, however queasy it made them to start with. "I told my mum about the party," Sam said, and Hunt grinned at him.

"Get us another round in, and chicken for me."

The meat of the day was cod, as it was a Friday, but at least after Sam had gone back and forth from the table to the bar a few times, the bartender believed he was with Hunt and not ordering himself whisky, and handed it over.

"Bloody fish fingers," Hunt said, when they finally got them. "And the bloody pub, acting like the whole world's ruddy Catholic."

Sam thought of his neighbors two doors down and the face they'd make at that, and coughed.

Hunt frowned at him. "You're never going to tell me you are."

"No." Sam knew he'd be a terrible Catholic if he ever tried it, and worse by the minute. He was watching Hunt eat and wishing he'd take back all that stuff about poofs, that he'd somehow notice what Sam was thinking and not mind, or better yet, that he'd like it. He'd not heard of any churches who didn't mind a couple of guys thinking of each other like that. "We're not anything, except for Christmas."

"Then what's that face for?"

Sam had no idea how he looked, and he wasn't about to head off home so late without having eaten. He was sure his mum hadn't saved him dinner when he'd said he was going out. "Nothing, Guv."

Hunt reached across the table and tugged Sam's basket of fish away from him. "Don't try lying to me, Tyler. I've been spotting liars since before you were born."

That didn't mean it was a good idea to tell him the truth. "Nothing, really. Just--" he swallowed and tried to put words to it that wouldn't make him sound like he was tied to his mother's apron strings, but still gave him a reason to make whatever face was he was making. "Seems to me like if you're out there trying to protect people, you shouldn't poke fun at them."

"Who's poking fun?" Hunt shoved the fish back toward him. "I'd rather have chicken, is all."

Sam picked up the fish and started peeling off the breading for lack of something to do with his hands. "So maybe you weren't right then, but DI Myers and the, um, magazines. And that story you were telling me."

Hunt drank a swig of whisky, finishing his second, and set the tumbler down. "It's not poking fun if it's the God's honest truth, lad, and you never knew DI Drake. She could've walked in front of a gun and never known it was there."

"Not that one." Sam cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice down. He felt like just saying the word, even about other people, would show Hunt what he was thinking. "The one with the homosexuals."

That tore it--Hunt gave him a sidelong look that made Sam sure he should've said poofs or something. "The boyfriend were all right," he said. "No record before or after. He fell in with the wrong bastard, but that's no reflection on him. I've known plenty of girls with no more sense than he had about who they ought to be seeing."

"All right," Sam said, and couldn't bring himself to complain about the words, not when there was everything else to complain about too. Not when Hunt would see what he was thinking if he kept poking at it. "It's just--it's courteous, isn't it, calling people by the right words."

The last thing he was expecting was to have Hunt laugh at him. "I've not heard that speech in years, Tyler, and I didn't ruddy miss it. You're one of those, are you?"

Sam's first, terrified thought was that he had outed himself without meaning to, and the panic of that moment hit like a tonne of bricks, followed right on by the rest of his brain telling him that wasn't what Hunt had meant, surely, or he wouldn't be sitting there calmly, grinning at Sam over his cod. "Maybe," Sam said, when he'd got his breathing under control. He hoped Hunt was far enough off and it was dim enough in the pub that he wouldn't notice the sweat standing on Sam's forehead. "Nothing wrong with thinking the world would be a bit better if we were all polite to each other."

"Polite's not the problem." Hunt had another bite of fish. "It's never what they say to your face, but what they do behind your back, or in front of you if they think they can get away with it."

"You have to start somewhere, though." Sam told his stomach to settle enough that he could eat. He could be out as late as he liked, up to a point, but if he kept worrying himself to death over what Hunt thought, he'd never have supper. "And if you don't start by treating people all the same, where are you going to start?"

"I never said I didn't do that." Hunt shook his head. He sounded exhausted when he said, "Don't you know that yet, Tyler?"

Sam blinked at him. He'd only typed up the one file, and he hadn't had time to read about anything else Hunt had done in his time in Manchester or London. "How could I, Guv?" he asked.

Hunt shook his head once, like he was waking up or shooing a fly off his nose, and frowned at Sam again. "You might've been paying bloody attention," he said, but he sounded better than he had a moment before.

"I'm paying as much attention as I know how," Sam said, and hated himself a little for how true it was. If he wasn't out of his head with this stupid crush, he might've caught a few more clues, might've understood what was going on better. "Sorry."

"Finish your dinner," Hunt told him impatiently.

Sam ate up as fast as he could, afraid that he'd said the wrong thing and that Hunt was sick of having him around. Maybe the first week celebration was more like "You've pestered us all enough for the last five days, and we're glad to see the back of you." But if that were so, it didn't explain why they were keeping on Elizabeth, who'd done nothing, so far as Sam could tell, but flirt with the youngest constables and get in everyone else's way. "Look, I never meant to be a pain," he said, when he'd had the last of it.

Hunt stood up and tossed enough money on the table to cover all they'd had. "You never do."

"I can--" Sam reached for his pocket.

Hunt caught his wrist before he took out his money and started for the door. "Not your problem, Sammy-boy."

"What did I do wrong?" Sam asked when they were out on the street, away from anyone who might have heard them talking. Away from anyone who might recognize DCI Hunt, so far as Sam knew, as he'd only been back in the city a few months, and he'd been gone some years before that.

If he'd been with anyone else, someone who wasn't a copper, he would've been afraid that there was more going on than him saying one wrong thing, or five wrong things. But any number of people had seen them leave the station, and they knew DCI Hunt. Sergeant Frances had told Sam good night on his way out the door, and she wouldn't have let him do anything dangerous. "I'm sorry, all right?" Sam said.

"What in hell for?" Hunt asked, turning to look at him and not letting his arm go.

"I don't know." Sam frowned at him and tried to guess which thing he'd said that had tipped them over from doing all right, almost like friends, into whatever this was. "What should I be sorry for?"

Hunt shook his head and kept on. "Asking too many bloody questions, just now."

"Where are we going?" Sam asked, lengthening his stride to keep up so it wouldn't look and feel so much like Hunt was towing him along.

"Back to mine." Hunt let him go when Sam came up even with him. "You've done a proper week's work, and you deserve a proper drink at the end of it."

Sam stared at him for a moment and nearly ran into a woman coming the other way. When he'd ducked round her and caught up to Hunt again, he felt better about the whole thing. "Would you rather I'd lied back there?"

"Why'd you think I took you so far out of the way?" Hunt thumped his shoulder, halfway between a pat and a slap. "You've a lot to learn about lying, Sammy."

Sam laughed at how awful that sounded, though he was sure he knew what Hunt meant by it. "I don't think my mother would approve of that. Join the police force, learn to lie?"

"It's called undercover," Hunt said. "And you're not to practice on your poor old mum."

"How am I supposed to practice, then?"

Hunt shook his head. "No need to till you're on the force, is there."

"That's years away." Sam ducked around a man with a little girl by the hand. "I probably shouldn't practice at school, either."

"We're not so strapped for men we'll take someone with no education to speak of," Hunt said. "You don't want them tossing you out when you're almost done."

"No, I know." Sam took a hitch step so he could match Hunt's gait again. "But if I don't practice, I won't be good enough when I start."

"Good enough for what?" Hunt turned left a few strides later, leaving Sam to catch him up. "PCs don't go undercover much. It's bloody dangerous work, not kid's stuff."

Sam sighed. "I know it is. I know. But I'm terrible at it, like you said. If I don't start practicing now, I'll never get the hang of it, and then I'll never be a detective."

"Hark at you." Hunt paused outside a building that looked like it was all flats, with paint flaking on the door. "Not even in the training program yet and you've already made detective."

"I'm going to," Sam said, trying to dare him to say what he wanted to hear, like Hunt kept daring him to do what he should. "You know I'd be good at it."

"You will," Hunt admitted, and opened the door, then put his arm in front of it when Sam would've gone in. "I've not had company in weeks. It's not as tidy as it could be."

Sam shrugged. He'd never met anyone who was willing to admit that their house was tidy enough, whether it was as bad as the file room at the station or as tidy as Auntie Heather's now that her daughters were old enough to look after their own things and do most of the work themselves. "I won't mind."

He might've minded if he hadn't promised not to, when they got up to the second floor and he saw the state of the place. It didn't look like anywhere anyone could live properly, half takeaway cartons with primordial ooze in and half files borrowed from the station. Sam decided to ignore the manky bits, and picked up one of the files instead. "What case is this from, Guv?"

"God knows," Hunt said, going into the tiny space that served as a kitchen. There were even more cartons in there. He came out again a moment later with two glasses and a bottle that made Sam wish he knew anything about whisky beyond "The older it is, the more it costs." "Here," he said, and poured them both a measure of it.

Sam hadn't gone much past beer and very cheap vodka mixed with squash, mostly because beer was good enough to get anyone drunk and didn't cost an arm and a leg. He sipped the whisky and made a face as it burned his throat and his nose, then hated himself for being such a kid about it. "Thanks," he said, and he was surprised he didn't sound as hoarse as he felt.

"You've earned it," Hunt said.

They stood there in the doorway between the kitchen and the sitting room for a few moments, Sam trying to think of an excuse not to drink more of the whisky, Hunt sipping his as Sam would a glass of water. Then Sam took a step toward the settee, where there were enough files to make him wonder how they ever kept the dusty room as full as it was. If everyone took home this many, they'd need twice the space if all the wandering folders came home. "I could clear this off," he offered.

"Only if you don't bloody alphabetize them while you're at it." Hunt piled them up on the floor next to the settee without any regard for their order, and with a mostly-internal wince, Sam set his stack of folders on top of Hunt's.

Once he'd sat down, he felt silly, out of place, there in someone else's messy sitting room with a glass in his hand he was afraid to drink. The next sip of whisky burned like the first, but it was a little easier because he was expecting it. "So, um, thank you," he said.

"What for?" Hunt asked, leaning back on the settee as comfortably as he did in his desk chair in the office. "You did good work, I told you."

"Yes, but." Sam waved his hand, completely at a loss for words, and had another searing sip. His toes were starting to tingle a bit from that little whisky, and he told himself he'd have to practice drinking to be a real copper, along with learning how to lie. "You're not bringing everyone back here, are you?"

Hunt snorted. "I'd like to see that blonde bird with the tits round here. She wouldn't know where to sit."

That probably meant Elizabeth. There was more than one blonde girl in the program, but most of them kept their breasts to themselves, as much as anybody could. "She wouldn't know where to look," Sam said, and grinned at Hunt.

Twenty seconds later, he realized he was still doing it, beaming like some love-struck idiot, and drank again to cover in case Hunt hadn't noticed.

"Think you've had enough of that," Hunt said, in a softer voice, and held out his hand to Sam.

Sam looked at the glass and tried to recall how much had been in it at the start. It was maybe half gone, and it hadn't been any more than the bartender would've given him in the pub. "I'm not drunk," he said, and then remembered all the times he'd seen his friends hammered to the point of puking, claiming they were sober right up till they couldn't talk. "Really, I'm not." He handed over the glass anyway, in case it would make Hunt feel better.

Hunt knocked back the rest as if Sam was about to grab it out of his hand and drink it off if he hadn't, then set both glasses on the floor by the stack of folders and looked at him again when he sat up. "Do you have a bird, Sammy-boy?"

"No, we've got a cat." Sam said, and then wanted to hide under the settee. He stared at his knees again and tried to decide whether he was drunk or just an idiot. "And I don't have a girlfriend, no."

"Bloody shame, smart bloke like you." Hunt let that sit there for a moment while Sam tried to work out what he could possibly say. "Thank you" didn't seem to fit.

"And you're, well." Sam looked round the room at the mess. "Nobody else lives here, right?"

Hunt snorted. "No space for them to try it unless we were on top of each other like a pack of immigrants."

Sam winced at that, but he bit his tongue so he wouldn't say anything rude.

"Not but what they can help it, at those wages," Hunt said, which didn't go far enough to make it better, but helped some. "But--no. Nobody but me, these days."

"These days?" Sam asked. There were no pictures he could see in the room, barely anything that made the place look like someone lived there, instead of showing up there to eat, read files, and sleep.

"Christ, you might want stories, but I'm not telling you that one." Hunt sighed, a long, awful noise. "Word of advice, lad--never get divorced. It's even less fun than they make it sound."

Sam swallowed hard and told his heartbeat to stop picking up. Hunt was just making conversation, and he'd been married, so whatever Sam was thinking, there was no way Hunt was thinking it too. "I'll keep that in mind, Guv. In case it's ever relevant."

"Relevant," Hunt said, like an echo. "You'll have them lining up."

Sam choked, nearly a laugh and not at all a laugh, and shook his head. "How do you reckon that? I'm--" he shook his head again, lost for words. "I don't think so."

Hunt touched his knee and his pulse jumped again, pounding in his ears so hard he could barely hear over it, especially when he said, "Don't be so sure, Tyler."

"Guv--I--" He couldn't make the words, couldn't ask, "What do you want?"

"This all right?" Hunt asked, giving his knee a squeeze that had to mean all of the things he'd been telling himself it couldn't possibly mean all that time.

Half of Sam's head was sure he was losing his bloody mind. Things like this did not happen, people he liked did not like him back, especially not when they were older than him--a lot older than him--and men, especially when they'd been going on all night about how much they hated poofs.

He might've pulled away and tried to say what he was thinking, except that his head wasn't doing as well as it might be, drowning under the absolute thunder from his heart and an insistent awareness that he was painfully hard, that he had been since Hunt put his hand on his knee. But if he had to, if he could say the word, he was sure it would all be as imaginary as he'd been afraid it was from the start. "Christ," Sam said, and tried to find another word. "I mean--yes, but--"

Hunt froze as if he was as frightened as Sam of this going wrong, and he might've been. He had good reason to be. "What?"

"This is--are you serious?" Sam stared at him. "You can't--this isn't--"

"Finish your ruddy sentences," Hunt said, as if it was easy.

"I just--" Sam faltered again.

Hunt punched him in the arm, fond and painful as if they were mates, no more than a few years between them. "I don't go round buying folk dinner unless I mean it," he said, as if it had all been a date.

Sam rubbed his eyes and tried to figure out where he'd missed the signals. He very well might have, because he'd never been on a date with a man, and there could've been some clue that he hadn't recognized. "It's just I've never done this before," he blurted out, and felt himself blush as Hunt stared at him. "I mean, I--I had a girl, for a while there, but we never--and never with a, um."

"Ah," he said, after a moment that lasted about ten years in Sam's head. "Do you want to?"

"I would've said if I didn't." Sam wanted to laugh again, but he was afraid that if he let himself start that he wouldn't be able to start again. "Why do you want to?"

"I'll ask the questions round here," Hunt said, and moved his hand from Sam's knee to his shoulder. It wasn't like when they'd been in public, not a firm, bracing grip, but--maybe it was a caress, if men did that. "I told you you'll have them lining up, and I can't think you'd want me first in line."

Sam stared at him. "I--" he scrubbed one hand over his face hard and stared at the beige wall, making himself say it. "I've fancied you since--since I followed you out of the school."

Hunt snorted and opened his mouth, clearly about to tell Sam that he was off his head.

Sam kissed him, quick and feeling like a fool for trying it on. It went wrong from the start--their noses bumped, and Sam nearly bit him without meaning to--and then Hunt made a noise against his mouth that sounded like he was dying, and it fit, wet and fierce and tasting of whisky. He put his arm round Sam, not like a hug, like--someone grabbing for his arse and holding on, pulling him closer like Sam had never dared to when he was seeing Christina, even after he'd had his hand up her skirt.

It felt different from this side, less like being fresh and more like being needed. When Sam opened his eyes again, he realized he was practically on Hunt's lap.

And that he couldn't possibly sit on someone's lap and think of him by his last name. "Hang on," he said, his voice as gone as the whisky hadn't made it.

Hunt froze, letting him go so fast he almost fell, as if Sam hadn't started it, and Sam put his arm round his shoulders. "It's all right," Sam said. "I just. I can't think of you as 'Guv' while we're at this, that's all."

"Bloody hell, no, don't." Hunt shivered like it sounded as strange to him as it did to Sam. "Don't get into the habit of calling me 'Gene,' is all."

Sam nodded--he'd known, he'd seen the paperwork, but he hadn't let himself think it before. "Only like this--Gene," he promised, and smiled. "My first undercover assignment."

"The covers are in the bedroom," Gene said, and kissed him again, giving his arse a squeeze that made Sam's head spin much more than the liquor had.

Going somewhere with a bed would make it feel more real, less like fumbling around in a way that somebody's mum could walk in on any second. Not that Gene's mum was going to do that, and Sam's was a bus ride away and had no idea where he was if she was going to come looking for him. He'd never quite talked Christina into bed, never pushed it that hard, no matter how many of Larry's stories he'd sat through. And she hadn't pushed, either. Maybe she knew things about him--but that wasn't anything to worry about right then. "Could we?" Sam asked, and tried to get off of Gene enough that they could stand up.

Gene looked at him with an expression Sam couldn't interpret, something lost and something found in his expression, and kissed him again as if he meant to do it all right there, whatever all of it was. Sam could've made a list of all the things he'd thought about that he'd never expected to be real, but he didn't want to go over that list till he had something to compare it to. Kissing was enough of a step in the right direction for right then without wanting more.

Except that he did want more. He wanted all of it, everything he could think of, everything he'd dared to think someone might someday do with and for and to him. But he didn't want it half-falling off of a settee. Sam tried to get his knees under himself and found he was shivering almost too hard to stand. "Sorry," he said. "I can't--if we go on like that much longer I'll--" Going to the station in a damp shirt was one thing, but he didn't want to sneak home with freshly rinsed-out pants.

Gene stood up, as firm as ever, as if none of this was even touching him, and gave Sam a hand up that he felt ridiculous for taking and worse for needing. "The bed's bigger, Sammy."

Sam kissed him to stop him from saying that name, and tried to decide whether he hated it enough to complain. The way Gene said it, especially right then, was different to how Sam's mum said it. It didn't sound like he thought Sam was a child, really. It sounded like Gene--liked him.

And if he was going to start having fluffy, stupid fantasies about being in love, he was going to have to quit the summer program right then and there. It wasn't about love, no matter how much he fancied Gene, even if Gene fancied him right back.

"Bed, I think," he said, between kisses, and they got there like a broken dance, half-leaning on each other, pausing every few steps for another kiss, till the bed hit the back of Sam's knees and he could sit down again.

Gene had his trousers open a moment later, and Sam was expecting him to be right there--doing--something, everything--but he was on his knees, and that was somehow more than Sam had expected. "This all right?" he asked, like Sam would say no.

"God, yes," Sam said, and lifted up his hips to let Gene peel down his pants as if he'd done it hundreds of times, and held onto the duvet with both hands while he tried like hell not to come at the first touch of Gene's mouth on him, and completely, utterly failed.

It didn't seem like it could possibly be real, so sudden and so wonderful and so horrible all at once. Sam covered his face and wished he was anywhere else, and was infinitely glad he was right where he was, even though Gene was laughing. Probably at him, and he deserved that.

"Sorry, sorry," he said. If he'd only, if he could just have, but there was no way to take it back now.

"It's all right," Gene said, and patted his hip. "You'll be along again in a moment."

Sam didn't know how hot his face had to get before it burst into flames of its own accord, but he was afraid that if he managed to get that embarrassed, Gene would have him down the station for arson. "Still I--I ought to have said something."

And there was something at the back of his mind, something about protection, and how he ought to be using it no matter who he was with.

Gene sat on the bed next to him, the springs dipping and creaking loud enough that the neighbors had to hear. He kissed Sam, and everything went full circle in Sam's head, going past the point where none of it could be real and settling in, between the beats of his racing heart, as the realest thing he'd ever felt.

"All right, there?" Gene asked.

"Yes," he said, and again, later, to every question that needed that answer. Yes, it was all right, yes, they should keep on, yes, he would try anything Gene could think to ask him, and yes, it was wonderful, even the bits that were strange and the bits that started off uncomfortable.

When he finally left, he'd showered and nearly left before Gene stopped him and made him eat a sandwich, then dropped him off. "Can't have you wandering the streets at this hour," he said.

Sam's mum was already asleep when he got in, not up and worrying the way she usually was. If she trusted him that much, then she might trust him more. If he could stay out until gone midnight, he could do all manner of things.

And if--the hardest if, the if he barely dared think inside his head in case he ruined it--if he could have more evenings with Gene, shading into nights, that went like that one, he'd learn a great deal more over the summer than he'd planned on. About being a copper, sure, and about everything else, besides.

Sam told himself not to hope for more than he was likely to get, and kept repeating that all weekend long while he did his chores, while he told Larry a lie about the party on Friday night. He started believing that he'd made it all up somehow by midnight Sunday.

He went into the station Monday morning, wondering whether he'd see any glimpse of the way Gene had been with him, or whether it'd be all DCI Hunt, stern and official. He brought all the officers their tea, and Hunt said, "Tyler," as he set the cup on his desk.

Sam's hand jumped till he nearly spilled it. "Yeah?"

"I've a few jobs for you," Hunt said, his mouth fierce as ever but a softness in his eyes that looked more like Gene, like Friday night. "Sit down."

"Yes, Guv," Sam said, and started breathing again, trying not to smile as brightly as he felt for fear someone would notice. He was getting better at undercover already.


End file.
